Pitino and his boys (Calipari, etc.) don't make sense for schools that do more than pretend to be serious about academics. They're better off at 3rd/4th/worse-tier places where they can be "more basketball."

Pitino should have kept his snausage in his pants and he has some other not so attractive characteristics. but he doesn't have anywhere near the rep of Calipari as far as being a douchebag, breaking amateurism rules and leaving his schools as the NCAA probation/forfeiture hammer is about to drop.

You're right -- I just looked that up. (Aside: Pitino first worked as a head coach in 1976 -- on an interim basis -- at Hawaii. He would have been about 24 at the time. He got hired at Boston University as the head coach just two years later.)

Oh, and it's definitely not an Italian thing. That's 50% of my ancestry, so I'd never go there.

"So Pitino called Martin back at noon during Martin's scheduled paddleball game to let him know, getting his voicemail.

"[That's when] he can never be disturbed unless it's a matter of life and death, and his assistant said, 'Is it a matter of life and death?'" Pitino recalled. "I said, 'No, it's really, really important.' It's a matter of life and death, because I changed my mind. "

But they both take a distant second to "fucking up coaching searches". He is a scratch handicap at that game.

PS: I liked RR and Love Beilein... just sad it took us an extra decade to rebuild the hoops program when Pitino would have done it much sooner... in all likelihood. Still wouldn't trade Beilein for anyone else in coaching... that includes Coach K.

Considering that he's a very successful businessman in addition to being an elite-class competitive sailor, it's really odd that his communication skills are so lacking.

I ran into him in an Ann Arbor hardware store a year or so ago and said hello to him. He seemed like a nice guy considering that I'm a complete stranger, but I didn't get the sense he's a real people person.

I've met him too, and I got the same impression. Though I remember hearing (from John U. Bacon, I believe) that while Martin was a very successful businessman (he's a multimillionaire), his company/companies are actually quite small. So I guess it stands to reason that, to an extent, he only ever interacted with a few people face-to-face on a daily basis.

The private company he founded was very small in terms of staff size. He never had to be an extroverted, polished communicator. To take over something as large as UM athletics (not to mention it being a big part of the public's eye) had to be a jolt to his way of operation. As good as he was at funding facilities without going into the red, he never really found his footing in any other part of the job.

I too have heard he is a very good guy. Just terribly miscast, which was the school's fault.

I've actually met Bill Martin once or twice through my work at Detroit Edison because we've worked with First Martin Corporation through the years all over Ann Arbor. He actually showed up at a couple meetings for the Fifth Avenue Underground Garage because several of the properties for which we needed to relocate equipment were First Martin properties. He seemed amiable enough in the meetings, but he sat in the corner and let other First Martin people do the talking, only saying "Hello" and "Have a good day" essentially.

As for the story itself, it's interesting really that we came so close to being a Pitino-coached team, but then I think back on that, especially now considering where we are and how much Beilein has done with this program, and sort of give the prospect the same look Beilein seems to be giving Pitino here:

Googly eyes notwithstanding, can we get us some old-school style adidas wear (in much better colors, of course) like the one Pitino has on? The old adidas logo is so much cooler than the new one, and that is a sweet track suit. Again, in the wrong colors, but still.

This was a well known story at the time. Big part of the reason he didn't take the job because Bo came out and said this is a football school and the basketball coach should never make more than the football coach and so on.

I consider myself a big Michigan fan and this is the first I've heard of this. I think Rick is a good coach, he handled the fractured leg guy thing pretty well and after hearing his press conferences he seems like a good guy. Never the less I'm happy with Beilein.

Many schools got hoodwinked around that time into thinking if you hired a Duke assistant, you would get the Duke mystique. Like other programs, we found out the hard way that is not even close to true.

Mike Bray is by far the most successful member of the Coach K tree and his resume is kinda meh (only one Sweet 16 in 13 years at ND).

Pitino wouldnt have lasted at UM either. Martin never follows thru on promises to rebuild facilities. Recruiting with old, ugly facilities vs Breslin and VCA was no picnic. Is there any surprise that our recruiting started picking up when the removations were underway? Its not the end-all excuse, but fact is, Pitino would have been shackled to an anvil had he come here -- lime Tommy was.

This story has been around unofficially since it happened although I think it was only in the past few years that Pitino added the part with his wife preferring Kentucky to the public narrative. Although it was widely suggested that she was why they went back to Kentucky even though people said that he could not take the Louisville job at the time given that he had been the coach at Kentucky. Previously, the story was just that he was going to go to Michigan but called to talk to Martin and Martin was MIA playing squash or something. Maybe he would have gone to Louisville no matter what but you have to wonder how Martin could let him bail without at least upping the offer and trying to talk him into going to Michigan. I mean, I like Beilein a lot more as a person but Pitino's at his 7th Final Four...

The funny part that Pitino doesn't mention is that she thought they were going back to all their friends, but Rick was right...most of them didn't want to be associated with them anymore after the switch from Kentucky to Louisville, because they were all big U-K boosters.

He was offered the Celtics job and a really big pile of money. Think it was like $75 million for a decade or something. At that point he'd just been to two straight national championship games with Kentucky and had little to prove as a college coach but still obviously had dreams of being successful (and rich) in the league. He wasn't.

Yeah. A horrible failure in part since they gave him full reign on personnel. He was way too loyal to Kentucky players - brought in Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty, Ron Mercer and a bunch of other UK dudes.

He also ran his #3 overall draft pick Chauncey Billups out of town. That didnt bode too well for his talent recognition skills.

Gotta give him credit for his Louisville squad this year though - they don't have an NBA player on their roster (maybe Dieng) yet they've been the favorite since they won the Big East Tourney a couple weeks ago.